And when the weather outside gets too hot even for cockroaches, they'll enter your home in search of more hospitable temperatures. All of these factors combined means that you're likely to encounter far more cockroaches in your home during the summer than you would in the colder months.
In general, most insects prefer the warmer months and are most active in the spring, summer and early fall. So, it can come as a real surprise to come down into your kitchen during the dead of winter, turn on the lights, and see cockroaches scurrying around on the floor.
While Americans are mostly dormant when it's cold and rainy, summer is roach season and the critters can appear in droves. While it's sound practice all year long, in the summer it is particularly important to keep your kitchen clean, store food in airtight containers, and take out the trash on a regular basis.
In the winter, the cockroach population shrinks but they are driven to seek shelter indoors, making them more noticeable. In the summer, the warm weather encourages breeding, which means that there are more cockroaches looking for food in a home.
As temperatures drop, roaches will seek out shelter in warm places, most often in our homes and offices. These buildings provide them with everything they need to survive the winter – warmth, access to water, and an abundant supply of food. Prevention is key when it comes to roaches.
The most common places for a roach nest in the house are in kitchens or bathrooms, particularly behind refrigerators, in cracks and crevices, and under furniture. Roaches prefer a warm, humid environment, so these places should be considered first, especially if they are close to a food source and water supply.
Roaches come into your home in search of three things: food, shelter, and water. They have also developed the ability to use even the smallest of openings as an entryway into your house. They can come in through cracks in the exterior walls, dryer vents, or even the gaps between walls and floors.
Cockroaches have an incredible sense of smell that they use to find food. You can take advantage of this fact by using scents they dislike such as thyme, citrus, basil, mint, and citronella to repel them from your home.
If it is between 10 to 25 roaches, it can be a moderate one. But if it exceeds 25, it can now be classified as a heavy infestation. You should know that the few roaches you see at home are not the only ones you have to deal with. There may be 40 to 50 roaches hiding within your place that you don't know.
Since microwaves vibrate water molecules, causing them to heat up, cockroaches can take up a permanent residence in microwave ovens. Cockroaches can be found in the LED time display of your microwave or you may simply see them walking around in the interior of the microwave.
When the weather warms up, though, cockroaches will emerge from the walls, basement, drain pipes, and other sheltered spots in your home in search of food. As a result, you might encounter them in your home in the springtime. Additionally, spring and summer are cockroach breeding seasons.
These pests are so resilient, it's been said that they'll be the sole survivors of a nuclear war. Needless to say, they're not easy to get rid of, even if you correct the conditions that attracted them in the first place. Here's why it's nearly impossible for a cockroach infestation to go away on its own.
The myth that killing a cockroach will spread its eggs isn't true, but killing a cockroach with force can attract more. But that can be used to your advantage if it brings bugs out of hiding to be eliminated.
One of the conditions that may attract a roach to a clean home is dampness. They are known to gravitate towards standing water, condensation emitted by air conditioners and refrigerators, and even the water bowls that you might leave out for your pets.
The disgusting pest may have been hiding in the folds of the paper bag that carried your groceries. Or it could have been inside a bag of potatoes. It could have even come into your house in a friend's purse. There are an endless number of ways a cockroach can suddenly appear in your home.
Fogging systems are great at killing roaches on contact, but foggers can actually push the majority of them further into their safer hiding places. Fogging or bombing roaches creates a long-term problem for you and your loved ones that will not go away.
If you see a cockroach or three, you're likely have hundreds—or thousands—living in a nearby nest. But if you act fast before the population has taken hold, you may be able get rid of cockroaches within a week to ten days. And most of them will be gone in a day or two.
Daytime Dens
Because cockroaches dislike light, they disappear during the daytime to dark places, including the undersides of appliances like stoves and refrigerators, underneath sinks or other installations, near plumbing, inside light switches and behind wall paneling or doorjambs.
Boric acid is one of the best home remedies to get rid of roaches naturally. Mix equal amounts of boric acid, flour, and sugar to make a dough. Set balls of dough around the home where cockroaches can feed on it. The flour and sugar will attract the roaches while the boric acid will kill them.
Add some food like a small piece of meat or some sweet stuff like chocolate on the roach bait in the bowl. Keep the bowl near one of the hiding places of roaches. To cover all the hiding places, you'll need multiple bowls with sticky roach trap and food. The smell of the food will draw the roaches out.